Well we all know that I desperately need more activities and things to schedule for our family… I mean because you know after all I am a “stay at home mom” and I sit at home and eat bonbons and watch my stories all day…… Now if could jump back to reality….

A few weeks ago Jakers brought home a permission slip for running club. Yep just about the time we have gotten the spontaneous running that is stereotypical for an Autistic Child. He now wants me to encourage his ability to run not only more, but longer stents and faster…. Well then the movie Miracle Run popped back in my head. I have also read of several different things about running and physical activity combating ADHD and other neurological issues. So I figure its 2 days a week 1 hour each time. Why not try it out… Its only for a few weeks they are training for the Got Grit? 5k on the 10th of may.

Well after the first running session he had Swim Team practice so I figure we will see how that goes *as with most of Jakers its a hit or miss* well that was a kick practice but Coach said he was on point the whole time! So I figure we will see what happens next week… Well after running he had a great swim practice followed by a great piano lesson. So the next day we tried just swimming and he was not focused and Coach was like umm… Run Run Run we are pro running for him. So I figure why not give it a whirl lets have him run/walk more often and see what kind of changes we see in him… Its really a great timing because we just started the new 9 weeks so its a fresh reporting period for school. No long swim breaks for the rest of the season, and the weather should be decent enough to get him outside….

I’ve also decided that if hes gonna possibly be a runner… Guess what? Its time for me to lace up my running shoes and at least become a part time runner…. Especially since it will be months before Logan is able to run with his boy.

So here is my question to you…. What do you recommend for a beginner runner? Brands, gadgets, socks, you name it what advice…

I have been thinking more and more about Anxiety here lately. We have a lot of types of anxiety around Carter Acres.

Anxiety noun, uneasiness of mind, concern about future events

Anxious adjective, worried, concerned, nervous

These two words go hand in hand. We almost always have so much going on around here that my Anxiety feels like its almost always on a level 7 Im like Code Orange all the time. My mind goes in a million different directions.

I tend to blame Autism for most of my Anxiety and honestly thought that this post was going to focus on how much they go together. But after some consideration and thought I do believe I would be anxious about the same things regardless maybe not as much but still the same.

I will say that medication doesn’t fix the issue. You have to learn coping skills. For a lot of us medication will help to a degree but then you have to think about the long term effects of it to your body. Do they outweigh the effects that Anxiety has on you?

I have seen my son grow so much in his generalized anxiety disorder and how he has learned to cope and deal with the different things that make him anxious. There for the longest time I thought we would never be able to leave the house. But as he has aged and learned different things he is learning how to step out of his comfort zone and face the things that make him anxious.

But with our faith we have decided to try and be a lot less anxious. Because we can’t control what happens in the future.

For the longest time I have been struggling daily to get by. I feel like we as a family are treading water which is keeping us alive and we are surviving but just barely. Its not the life I want for us its not the life we deserve. But unless one of us steps out of our comfort zone and changes things up we are going to end up going completely insane. (Im sure some argue we already are)

Spring has arrived. Well kinda sorta I mean we are out for spring break but geez its really cold outside today. BTW I am so over winter. But we have a chance now with everything changing up to finally make some changes in our daily lives. But now it means I need to actually do it an not just talk about it.

This will be the first FULL summer we have meaning no one will be starting school up in July. We will all be back on a traditional calendar. It will be a first for us in many years we also will be at 2 schools verses 3. We have lots of areas that need to be addressed. But I know that we need to go into this with baby steps or we will just crash and burn.

Areas to Work on

Schedule for each kid

Menu Planning

Chore Planning/Daily Jobs

Spiritually

Family Time

I am sure some of these areas will lead into other areas. I know its lots of work to do but it will be for the best benefit of the family.

Also for a Logan update:

He has had his CCL surgery and is currently working on his recovery and healing down in SC at DFA and will hopefully be coming home to finish his recovery after his next post op appointment as long as his healing is on target and is cleared to come back until his next appointment. He still has a long road ahead of him in his recovery and we are still working on our fundraising to pay for his surgery. http://www.youcaring.com/pet-expenses/for-the-love-of-logan/145238 Is our fundraising page….

As I am sure you all know this very very important member of our Family.

Story Time

Well if you don’t let me introduce you to Logan he is Jakers Autism Service Dog. We have been a family for right at 3 years. He has totally changed our lives. Jakers and Logan bonded instantly and within days he was already giving us alerts. Which is AMAZING. I was able to begin to sleep at night which I am not sure I slept a full night since Jakers was about 18months old because he didn’t sleep. I was always scared Jakers would escape lets just say I’ve ran through my neighbors yard more than once barely clothed chasing after a nekkid kid. But one day our lives changed… This day right here when he arrived.

Looking back at this collage makes me see how much they’ve all changed and grown. Well a couple of weeks ago Logan started limping on his hind leg. We took him off duty (Which meant the family went into hermit mode we only went to a few select places but mainly we stayed home). After a couple of days the limp didn’t go away so we headed to the Vet. We tried did a few days of Anti Inflammatory/Pain meds while we scheduled sedation XRays. Well we found out Logan has torn his Cranial Cruciate Ligament (Basically a Dog’s ACL). Unfortunately the only way to fix this painful issue for him is to do surgery. Its a very expensive surgery and he has to have this surgery sooner rather than later. The cost is about $3,000.00 which isn’t something that anyone has lying around. So we have a fundraising page and I have a paypal account set up that we are desperately seeking donations for this urgent surgery the longer it takes to raise the money the worst it gets. It kills me to see him in pain and not being the dog he should be. It will take him about 12 to heal after the surgery is complete so we have a long road ahead of us. Its going to be hard all around without having him home for a few months we have already began noticing issues with Jakers with Logan not being able to do his job.

Please Please Help us spread the word…. Any and All Donations are so greatly appreciated.

This past week I really began cleaning out the clutter and trying to organize the house more. I know I seem to be doing that all the time. But this time I’ve been just working in small areas at the time. I’ve been using a timer to help and only do about 15 min in each room. Well except the boy’s room upstairs I spent about 3 hours in there because if I come down from upstairs I so don’t want to go back up the and because its out of sight its alot easier to forget about going back up. Im not finished in there but the rule is they have to atleast keep it the way I have it right now or what I find on the floor is put into a box and they have to earn it back! Slowly I will regain this house so we can begin to do some upgrades to it that we want to do. Since we won’t be moving anytime in the near future I want to get this house more like my home.

@Bookieboo @babybookieboo @NcCarterFamily @GregDevlin at #bloggycon

I also was given the opportunity to attend BloggyCon with the awesome Leah and of course BabyBookieBoo was there. I met some many awesome people there who I can’t wait to get to know better both online and off. There were awesome sponsors there as well. I honestly think it was one of the best conferences for first timers like myself. I will say that I thinking having BabyBookieBoo with me helped alot. He is an awesome ice breaker🙂 Words can not express my gratitude for Leah for allowing me to spend that time with her. Fecal matter, and crazy shuttle rides and all. The experince was PRICELESS!!!!

*look for a post soon that is on my bloggycon expereince*

We have our Graduate Campaign coming up… I believe its 2 weeks aways AHHHHHHHH!!!! Holy Cow only 2 weeks to go! But I am very excited to take part in my 4th Campaign. I hope you will all come join us on his crazy roller coaster ride. Shannon will be in the seat right because she is totally my Partner In Crime!

This week our guest on Mamavation TV is Joshua Medcalf I was able to hear him speak once before during Fitcation12. After a talk with him he will definitely have you seeing things in a different light. I know that no matter what everyone will take something away from hearing him speak.

I have so many wonderful ideas and plans floating around in my brain I can’t wait to start applying them to my life and I hope that you will come along and enjoy the ride!

Eeeeek… Its been way too long since I’ve updated my blog. I have to get back into the atleast once a week posting. Its just been 50 Shades of Cray Cray around here. Im struggling with getting into my groove with everything. Between the struggles with the kids and with the house and just life in general. But Im getting there. This week is clean house and prep for BloggyCon. I leave on thursday and come home on Saturday but get to hang with the awesome Leah @Bookieboo and my lil man #babybookieboo who is just chock full of awesomeness. 2 boys have been home on their intersession and the have 1 more week to go after this one, and the oldest is growing and changing daily. Welcome to the world of Puberty. He made an A+ on his first project in middle school. Which was what he was shooting for! Well I have cleaning to do and a mamavation tv show t attend.

So this was my first week with the Unofficial Start to the Graduate Campagin. I have an AMAZING Partner Shannon. Its kind of nice because we have done a campagin together before so we know how to push eachother. We also have some awesome cheerleaders! Well I just realized with all the craziness last week having a sinus infection and chest cold and who knows what else I never posted my before weight scale pic. I took before pictures and I plan to share them later on but I just can’t share them yet, but I will soon… So here is my before weight pic my starter That means yes I have gained quite a bit back but actually I lost about 8lbs in total the week of fitcation and the week after. But I’ve been getting my butt kicked this week and working on things I haven’t been hard core because of my sickness but this is my first week weigh in.

So that gives me a 2.6lb weight loss for week one. Which I think is pretty decent! I am really having to figure out the best time for me to work out because our school schedule is getting pretty hectic and my middle schooler has thrown me for a loop. He like instantly grew up over night. He has his own style and is now in band and wants to stay afterschool for 2 hours 4 days a week. Which really will be awesome because it will give him time to get help on his homework and I can get little peoples homework done before he comes in. C man has been going thru some Im not quite a kid but yet Im not quite a teenager. Now with Jakers he’s his own post, we are in the process of re-evals at school to change his IEP things at school. He’s also getting in that odd area where he’s not a toddler anymore but not quite to age level either he’s in that inbetween stage too.

I have learned that working out in classes or groups is a lot easier to push yourself than when you are working out at home. Its a big difference and I’m looking into if I can start going to a class once a week. I would love to be able to go do a kick boxing class once a week atleast. We are also looking into getting into the pool more often for the boys and my father in law because he’s been having lots of issues with his health and I think getting him moving more in aqua therapy would be great for him. Well until next time….

Fitcation12 was such a major event for me to be able to attend. I was able to get together with a wonderful group of 20 Woman and 1 Man who’ve I’ve spent years building a relationship with. We all had such a huge bond from being apart of Mamavation that being able to get together as a whole and share lots of Hugs, kisses, Pinches laughs and tears. None of this would have even been possible if not for our AMAZING Sponsors!

Dole was amazing. They put us up at the beautiful Four Seasons Hotel in Westlake Village for our 3 night stay. This is such a beautiful hotel, I still think there are parts of it we didn’t even have a chance to see but the hotel had us all in awe the whole trip. Dole invited us to come to their headquarters which conveniently was just a short little walk across to them and provided us with a tour of their spectacular building. The breakfast we had at dole was amazingly delicious and the best part was it was all a Gluten Free breakfast. We ate outside on their beautiful patio with the waterfalls and walking trails. I seriously could have sat out there and relaxed the whole day away. Now it was time to get down to business so to speak. We headed into the test kitchen and learned all about new products that Dole has out and how they come up with new recipes. We learned about everything from where they get their products new lines they have coming out and we even got to try some out! Chia Seeds and Mushroom Powder are amazing and my kids will be getting so much more of them incorporated in their diets. That afternoon we were welcomed back to find out more about Dole and their quest to Feed the world healthy foods not just processed junk! Mushroom Powder is awesome. It provides you with all your vitamin D needs which is one thing most of us can use some help in. But you can hide it in anything, because it has no taste. But it does smell like Chocolate

New Balance were awesome enough to provide us with some awesome new PURPLE minimus shoes. They are so cute and comfy and didn’t even need to break them in like most shoes. We wore them for most of our workouts and on Saturday for our adventures in LA we all wore our Cute Purple New Balance shoes. I love the fact that they are so lightweight because I am usually not a shoe wearer unless its winter time and there is snow on the ground.

Subway provided us with a lavish spread for our lunch on Friday. They are one of the best fast food health places that you can choose to eat at. We had so much salads and sandwiches and veggies to choose from. Subway is one of our favorite go to quick meals at home with the boys so it was awesome that they were willing to provide us with some very nutritious food on Friday during our hectic busy day. But I will tell you sitting around eating subway and
hanging out with girlfriends and listening to our speaker Joshua Medcalf that
day was one of the best lunches we had the whole weekend. Thank you subway for allowing us that bonding girl time with comfort food

Leading Lady Bras… Let me tell you as a girl with Big Girls. It is extremely hard to find a bra that fits and is comfortable and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to buy. They sent us all a bra and we did girl checks through the day when we wore them. I think my favorite part was on Saturday when we played guess who’s girls these are while we were traveling through Los Angeles. We tweeted pics of our girls and see who could guess who’s was who’s. It was quite fun and provided lots of giggles both at fitcation and at home lol. They also hosted our Dinner on Saturday night and that was the best morroccan food I’ve ever had we all shimmed and shook what our mama’s gave us on the dance floor with the belly dancer that night too. Oh and don’t forget until 10/14/12 use discount code FIT15 for a 15% at LeadingLady

Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village was spectacular to date it was the nicest hotel I’ve personally ever stayed in. You could get lost in that hotel very easily and I think a few of us did at times. The bathrooms were amazing I know a lot of girls had fun with the phone in the bathroom. They have anything you could need at this hotel and they were also gracious enough to allow us to use the pool and other areas even after we checked out from our stay. I can’t wait to go back and spend more time at the hotel. The hotel also as the California Health and Longevity Institute there. You might recognize this place from shows like Extreme Makeover Weightloss edition and biggest Loser. They have a beautiful spa and health institute that has everything under the sun in it they can do just about everything there so its an all-inclusive experience for their guests. We were given a tour and it was just beautiful the walking trails are amazing and I hope to be able to spend more time on them next time I head out to California!

SIP Certified Organic Wines provided us with a wonderful selection of their wines and we took every opportunity we could to take a few sips. We even mixed some with our Dole juices. You would be surprised with how many different reasons a group of women can come up with for reasons to have a glass! It was very delicious wine and we enjoyed every SIP of that wine.

Wait this was suppose to be a Fitcation right… You ask where does the fit come in at? Well trust me we were all walking a little funny at all of these events you’ve already read about. But now lets talk about the workouts….

Fit Body Boot Camp provided us with our first ass kicking work out. Steve yes I’ll call him Steve but trust me during the workout we all wanted to call him different names. Gave us a 30 minute workout and we all found muscles we didn’t even know existed. Lots of lunges, burpees, push up, crunches. Eeeeeek it was crazy but it was a great workout and he was amazing.

Hoopnotica was our Saturday workout. This one I am still trying to get the hang of we had a wonderful instructor that had 95% of the class hooping before the end. I was part of that 5% but with the DVD’s and the Hoop we were given I will eventually get the hang of it. Who knew hooping would burn so many calories. I did burn alot of calories during Hoopnotica but it was baby carrying lol…

I did an extra workout the night before fitcation and want to thank Leah and Mark both for allowing me to go kickboxing with them. It was one of my favorite excersizes from the whole weekend. Plan to see more about each of our sponsors soon from me but I just wanted say thank you so for for them.

Its Monday… Im still on the route towards home from spending an amazing few days with my Sistas at Fitcation12. It was such an awesome trip to take. I am thrilled that I took the chance to go and do this. I took so much away from this trip, much more than just the information we learned while we were there. I learned that I can leave my kids and they will be back and alive when I come home. Well atleast they were this time! I learned that I can do things that are way out of my comfort zone, I would have never thought I would do half the things I did this weekend. But I know this was a life changing experience that as I comb through it all new things will begin to unfold. Because I am so not even beginning to process what all I learned yet, I have a day or 2 before I can even begin. Seriously I have been go go go and my Sunday was such a long day, Wednesday Hunter will go to Middle School Meet and Greet night, His Ma will take him because David and I are taking Charlie to go see Big Time Rush in Concert. It was so nice to be able to put faces with names and to be able to physically hold and do other things with these crazy women. I know I’ll see these girls again soon, With all of our awesomeness combined we can only be contained together once a year.

Today we will find out the Finalists for Mamavation Mom. Then next week we will start a brand new campaign! Its always a great time to meet the new girls who want to be the next group of moms.
A huge thing I learned it I can fit into the airplane seat and buckle in without an extension. Its tight but it clicks! I can kick box with the Orginal Bookieoo Badass herself and her wonderful husband Mark and FINISH a class! I can travel alone. I am THE baby whisperer!
Well Its been a long 6 days and I’ve still got time before my next flight. My brain is no longer working, its still somewhere swimming in the Pacific Ocean maybe hanging out with the Snake Man, but either way my brain is all loopy from lack of sleep. So til we meet again!

Oh Goodness everyone this past week has been busy and you know what it doesn’t look like its gonna be slowing down anytime soon because I have a busy rest of the month planned. I have learned that scheduled busy is better than chaotic busy and that is a huge thing for me to learn. But when Im busy I get more steps in and I end up not mindlessly eating but on the other hand sometimes I get super busy and forget to eat all together which is just as bad because you’ll over eat later on.

Grrr… Lets try this middle topic about Fitcation again. Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past few months. Then you know I have been preparing for a NonConference Conference with a very important group of woman and man in my life. Mamavation has our yearly conference. First off let me say thank you to Leah and all the behind the scene people who have worked their asses off for this awesome event. We have some majorly awesome sponsors. Dole who are putting us up at an awesome hotel and giving us a tour of their headquarters. Leading Lady Bras are giving us bras to wear and our sponsoring some of our event. I am extremely excited to try out their Bras because I am always looking for a good bra for the girls! Subway is providing some of our breakfast and lunches during our trip. Yum! We have alot of other sponsors and goodies that I’ll get to post about afterwards. If you can’t tell I am super excited to be able to attend this. Good Food, Good Company, Good Wine, GREAT Times! Im so excited that a couple of us are even gonna hang out the night before!

Now our topic Monday night is Paleo. Which is something I have been learning more and more about. Its also called the Caveman or Dinosaur Diet. Its very clean and very basic eating. I am excited to learn more Monday night as our guest has lots to teach us!

Well I could go on and on about the events I have for this week… I’ve only got a few goals for the week…

Pack the 2 older boys up for their Young Marine Encampment

Lay out school clothes for the week

Pack for Fitcation12

Enjoy time with my boys, This will be the farthest and LONGEST mommy has ever left